Nobel Prize Winner Speaks at Baylor University for Special Event Hosted by The Beall Poetry Festival

March 1, 2013
Seamus Heaney

Seamus Heaney photo by Felix Clay of The Guardian.

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Contact: Terry Goodrich, Assistant Director of Media Communications, (254) 710-3321
NOTICE: The program has been moved to Jones Concert Hall in the McCrary Music Building, 110 Baylor Ave. The program will still begin at 7 p.m. Monday, March 4.
WACO, Texas (March 1, 2013) - In a rare American appearance, Irish poet and Nobel Prize recipient Seamus Heaney will speak at Baylor University as a special guest of The Beall Poetry Festival. The event will take place at 7 p.m. Monday, March 4.
Heaney is regarded as one of the greatest figures in modern poetry and has published 20 collections of writing. Robert Lowell, former U.S. Poet Laureate, said Haney is "the most important Irish poet since Yeats." Speaking of his selection for the award, the Nobel committee said Heaney was chosen for his "works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past."
In addition to his reputation as a poet, Heaney has gained notoriety for his work as a playwright, translator and lecturer at Harvard University and the University of Oxford. He has received four honorary doctorates and numerous awards, including the E.M. Forster Award and the T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry.
"Seamus Heaney is the most well-known living poet in the world and winner of the 1995 Nobel Prize for Literature. His visit to Baylor represents a unique opportunity for the Baylor University community and the residents of Waco and Central Texas to hear him read from his own poetry," said Richard Russell, Ph.D., professor of English in Baylor's College of Arts & Sciences.
"Heaney's poetry features an earthy and sensuous vocabulary that emerged from his time growing up on a family farm in Northern Ireland. At the same time, his poetry draws upon the entire British and Irish poetic and cultural heritage--Wordsworth and Yeats are two of his great exemplars--along with the literature of Italy and Japan, for example, in a way that makes him a world poet for the ages," Russell said.
This event is free and open to the public.
by Brent Salter, student newswriter, (254) 710-6805
ABOUT BAYLOR UNIVERSITY
Baylor University is a private Christian university and a nationally ranked research institution, characterized as having "high research activity" by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. The university provides a vibrant campus community for approximately 15,000 students by blending interdisciplinary research with an international reputation for educational excellence and a faculty commitment to teaching and scholarship. Chartered in 1845 by the Republic of Texas through the efforts of Baptist pioneers, Baylor is the oldest continually operating university in Texas. Located in Waco, Baylor welcomes students from all 50 states and more than 80 countries to study a broad range of degrees among its 11 nationally recognized academic divisions. Baylor sponsors 19 varsity athletic teams and is a founding member of the Big 12 Conference.